If you’re anything like me, you’ve recently had loads of emails or letters from charities asking you to sign up for their communications. You might be wondering what the fuss is about, and just ignoring them. It’s certainly tempting!

The reason for the flurry of activity is that new laws (succinctly known as The General Data Protection Regulations or GDPR) make it illegal for organisations to contact you unless they have your specific permission to do so. This of course gives you a wonderful opportunity to get off all those annoying mailing lists you have somehow ended up on, but also means that organisations you care about won’t be able to tell you what they are doing.

This also may apply to your friends who are mission workers. They too may be caught by this legislation if they give you updates on the work they do in association with a church or agency – so don’t assume you don’t need to reply to them when they ask you to sign up again.

The reason for this legislation is to prevent people getting lots of begging letters, which in itself is a good thing. Previously, some people have been driving themselves into poverty because they responded to so many good causes. But for mission sending agencies, the bad news (apart from the sheer effort and cost of complying with GDPR) is that they will not be able to send begging letters (sorry, ‘requests for funding’) to so many people, although at least they’ll save on the postage of all the unwanted letters they’ve previously been posting.

Many charities rely on a regular mailshot to give supporters updates on their work and invite funding to keep that work going. This often reminds people to make a donation, and forms a core part of any fundraising strategy. So it’s quite possible that agency incomes will fall.

Unfortunately , with every newsletter that arrives, supporters can face a very real dilemma. Do they give or don’t they? And when you are looking at a photo of a starving orphan it can be very hard to refuse to give the £50 you need this month for your gas bill.

So for us, the recipients of these newsletters, it will help to have a clear policy on giving. So, for example, if you make a decision to:

give £50 each month to good causes

give to each agency only once a year

have a list of agencies you are willing to support in order of priority

you are far more likely to give consistently and generously to causes you really care about. Of course, the amount, frequency and number of recipients will vary according to your own circumstances, but the point is to be more structured and less ad hoc about giving, and so reduce the risk of overspending which gave rise to GDPR in the first place.

Get any two mission workers from the Tropics together, and it’s only a short time before they start talking about malaria. But now this is something we need to take even more seriously as evidence emerges of a ‘supermalaria’ which has developed resistance to the main drugs used for treating the illness.

We have blogged about malariabefore, but this development needs to be brought to everyone’s attention. In a letter to the British medical journal The Lancet a team of researcher from the Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok report what they call “a sinister development” and say that the new strain of malaria has

outcompeted the other resistant malaria parasites, and subsequently acquired resistance to piperaquine.

Originating in Cambodia and currently spreading across south-east Asia, there is now a race against time to eliminate this problem before it spreads to major population centres. The renewed risk is a timely reminder to mission workers, short-term teams and the people we work alongside to take malaria seriously. While continuing to take the appropriate chemoprophylaxis recommended by medical advisors, but more attention needs to be given to avoiding being bitten in the first place – here are our top tips:

Make sure there is no standing water near your home, school or office for mosquitos to breed in. If you can’t eliminate standing water, pour a small amount of paraffin into it to break the surface tension and drown mosquito eggs.

Ensure there is no lawn within 100 metres of your home, school or office. Mosquitos feed on the grass sap so are attracted to green lawns.

Fit mosquito netting to windows and doors and check it regularly for damage.

Spray bedrooms with a pyrethoid-based spray before dusk.

Sleep with air conditioning or an electric fan as the cool and turbulence deters mosquitos.

Always sleep under an insecticide-impregnated mozzie net. Replace nets periodically and re-impregnate them every 6-12 months, depending on how frequently you wash them.

Cover up arms and legs with loose-fitting clothing, particularly if sitting outdoors in the evening.

Always use mozzie repellent spray on any remaining exposed skin – ones containing DEET are generally considered to be the most effective.

There is no evidence that insect electrocution devices or sonic repellants work, although many people continue to use them.

Eating raw garlic, chilli or Marmite are often believed to deter mosquitos although there is no evidence proving this!

And finally, take symptoms of malaria seriously, particularly if you’re in south-east Asia. Many experienced mission workers shrug malaria off as if it is no worse than a case of flu, but this time it may be much harder to treat.

It’s not just Tony Blair*. Parents everywhere make the education of their children one of their top priorities, and mission workers are no different. One of the major obstacles to people going in mission is the fear that their children’s education might be compromised as a result of their time overseas, and one of the major causes of attrition is mission workers returning home to get their children into their home country’s education system.

While many parents fall into the simple trap of assuming that education overseas cannot possibly be as good as the state education in their country of origin, the truth is often very different, and here are some of the possibilities you can investigate abroad:

Local schools. Believe it or not, some countries have excellent schools! Advantages: it is often cheap or even free, children engage with the language, history and culture of their country of residence, and make local friends. Disadvantages: the final qualification may not be internationally recognised.

British schools abroad. There are many schools overseas which follow the English curriculum. Advantages: children stay within the English curriculum, facilitating UK schooling during home assignment and entry into the UK university system. They make friends from within their home culture (though some of them may have a much higher socio-economic status than mission kids, leading to potential discontent). Disadvantages: high fees, though many schools can be persuaded to grant bursaries as mission kids broaden the social profile of their school.

International schools. Most large cities have a number of private schools teaching in English, and some of them achieve very high standards. Advantages: children engage with the language, history and culture of their country of residence while learning in English, and make international friends (though some of them may have a much higher socio-economic status than mission kids, leading to potential discontent). Disadvantages: high fees, though many schools can be persuaded to grant bursaries as mission kids broaden the social profile of their school.

Christian schools. In order to facilitate mission, there are Christian schools in many countries, often with boarding facilities. Advantages: children are educated within a Christian environment and make international friends. Disadvantages: many of these schools follow a US –style curriculum which may not be relevant to other nationalities. If your child is a boarder you have the pain of waving goodbye to them at the start of every term. More information about locations of Christian schools is available by emailing info@syzygy.org.uk.

Home education. There are a wide variety of options for home education including online schools and written curricula, many of them Christian. Advantages: children can stay at home while continuing their education, which may follow the curriculum of their passport country. Disadvantages: discipline can be a problem, due to confusion between the role of parent and teacher, and one parent may in effect work full-time as a teacher. Children can also be isolated from others their same age and not develop social skills through interaction.

We realise that educational choices are a minefield, full of pressure, doubt and ‘what ifs’. Many agencies have a TCK advisor who can help you explore the options more fully. But for us the key question is: if you can trust God for your ministry, can you trust God for your children’s future? In conventional thinking, we are very much aware that university, job, security, and income all depend on how well we do at school. However as Christians we have a different mindset: while we want the best possible education for our children we are very much aware that which doors are opened to them in life depends far more on the grace of God than on their exam results. And a good education consists not only of grades but in walking closely with God, in the development of character, and in the ability to mix easily with people of different cultures.

* “Our top priority was, is and always will be education, education, education” Tony Blair in a speech at Southampton University, 23rd May 2001

I have often spoken in these blogs about prayer, because IMHO it is the number one need of mission workers, being the key to resolving other issues like housing, transportation, visas, cross-cultural stress, lack of funding, issues with co-workers, children’s educational needs and other headline issues.

But I have seldom asked for prayer for Syzygy itself. Now things are changing; Syzygy is getting bigger and I’m getting busier. We are on the verge of forming partnerships with other member care providers to help us meet the needs of agencies and churches as they support their mission partners. We need money to fund this expansion and will possibly take on some part time staff or more volunteers.

So I am now specifically asking for prayer support to help us thrive as an organisation so that we can be even more effective in supporting world mission. Every day we publish prayer requests on the PrayerMateapp which you can access via your phone. If that doesn’t work for you, there is a prayer diary on our website which you can either access daily from your computer or print out and keep with your Bible.

Please commit to pray for us daily. We need your help so that we can help others.

Not so long ago Syzygy was contacted by a mission worker who had spent several decades overseas in ministry. With little remaining support from his ageing friends, and a regular contribution from a church he had been part of a long time previously, he had been able to survive in the field on his small income. But now forced by ill health to return to the UK, he found himself homeless. He couldn’t afford the rent on a flat until he qualified for benefits, and had no remaining money to buy somewhere.

There are many people in similar situations, whose time serving abroad has cost them everything, and with no remaining support are unable to find a home once they come ‘home’. So somebody (probably Myles Wilson but I can’t find the quote in writing) has observed that:

The single best thing a mission worker can do to plan for their retirement is to buy a house before they go abroad.

Simple! Buy a property, let it out, and use the rent to pay off the mortgage. If you stay abroad for the 25 year life of the mortgage, you have a free home when you get back. If you come back sooner, at least you have somewhere to stay while you get settled.

But letting is not without its challenges, and anyone considering it should read our Briefing Paper which looks at the pitfalls as well as the benefits. One of the greatest challenges is actually getting a mortgage. These days, banks are so risk averse that overseas mission workers, with no regular salary and no fixed UK abode, may find it hard to qualify for one.

So we’re delighted to be able to tell you about Kingdom Bank, run by Christians who understand the situation of mission workers. Because of their knowledge of the missions world, they’re willing to be a little more flexible than other banks in considering how they secure the value of their investment in your property. And they are actually keen to support you in your ministry by helping you get the right buy-to-let mortgage terms that work for you.

If you are interested in exploring this option, you can contact Kingdom Bank on 0115 921 7250, visit their website or email them at info@kingdombank.co.uk

Please remember the value of your investment can go down as well as up!

Disclaimer: please note that Syzygy is not recommending Kingdom Bank, merely pointing our readers in the direction of this service which may or may not be right for them. Please take financial advice from a qualified advisor.

We are all familiar with the concept of blocking. Many of us grapple frequently with roadblocks. Occasionally we have blocked drains. Some of us suffer from blocked arteries. A block stops something happening, and is generally considered a bad thing. Particularly when they show up in our meetings, where sadly they are far too common.

I was on a course recently when the subject turned to people who block progress in meetings. Much laughter ensued as we all regaled each other with stories of the different types of uncooperative individuals who, whether intentionally or simply as a by-product of their character, stop all progress at meetings. And then this awful thought dawned on me – which one am I?

If so many of the meetings I’ve been chairing have been disrupted by someone, how often have I disrupted somebody else’s meeting? How often have you? And once you’ve realised which one you are, what can you do to make sure you avoid blocking behaviour? In the missions world our meetings are often complicated enough – possibly led by people with no training or aptitude for chairing, many of the participants not speaking in their heart language, different cultures expressing themselves in different ways – that it can be hard enough to be effective without us bringing the unhelpful aspects of our personalities into the room too.

There are probably an endless number of the different types of blockers but here are a few you might recognise:

Diplomat – a person who’s so keen to avoid upsetting anybody that they end up talking a lot but not really going anywhere with it. Solution: You have an opinion, it does no harm to share it!

Reluctant participant – if we don’t really want to be in a meeting, we let people know. We may not be paying attention, using social media, or answering emails. Solution: Pay attention and it will be over quicker!

Butterfly – this sort of mind happily touches down on the matter in hand for a few moments, before fluttering off to somewhere else. They continually throw out random suggestions which may take the meeting off on a completely different trajectory. Solution: Concentrate!

Unprepared participant – these people come to the meeting without having bothered to read the sheaf of briefing notes. Solution: Respect others by not wasting their time explaining things to you.

NIMBY (“Not In My Back Yard”!) Nimbys are very defensive of their own territory, and will block developments that are of value to the agency if they adversely affect the Nimby’s ministry/team/personal opportunities. Solution: Learn to see the bigger picture!

Campaigner – sometimes we have a fixation that there is only one thing that needs to be done to put the world to rights, and we bring it up at every opportunity even if everyone’s heard it before. Solution: Get over it!

Joker – some people can’t resist using humour, and the right amount in the right place can be just what is needed to lighten the atmosphere. But too much simply becomes a distraction. Solution: Keep quiet!

Show off – some people love an audience, and a captive one is even better. But this may not be the right place to grandstand all your achievements. Solution: Stay humble!

Bully – belittling and demeaning others in order to get your own way is not negotiating – it is bullying. If other people leave a meeting hurt by what you’ve said about them, you’re a bully. Solution: Deal with your personal inadequacies somewhere else!

I am finding that asking myself a few simple questions before opening my big mouth can help contribute to a better meeting experience for everyone. Asking myself questions like: “Is what I’m about to say going to move the meeting on?”, “Have I already had my share of time?”, “Am I going to unnecessarily exasperate people?” can lead to me talking less, but saying more.

Those of you who know me will be looking down this list saying to yourselves “That’s him, that’s him….” But let me ask you a more important question: which one are you?

Mission workers may not often think about Inheritance Tax, as few of us own vast fortunes. But we may well be liable to pay it if we inherit a reasonably-sized house from a parent (or even a small one if it’s in London!). With this in mind we are reproducing this article from our resident tax adviser, Martin Rimmer, to raise attention to this potentially expensive issue which, if not properly addressed, could see family funds going to the UK government instead of supporting mission workers.

In April we received the sad news of Ronnie Corbett’s passing. It was reported at the time that prior to his death, Corbett sold his £1.3 million family home in a bid to save his children a ‘six figure’ tax bill. Shortly after Ronnie Corbett’s death a painting by the artist Lucian Freud went on display at the National Gallery in London. It had been donated to the nation in lieu of death duties on the artist’s death.

Both are high profile illustrations of the intricacies of Inheritance Tax. Both Freud and Corbett were legitimately attempting to mitigate the potential tax implications on their estate to their heirs.

Inheritance Tax or IHT is a tax on an individual’s estate that can reach a whopping 40% of everything that is left behind over a threshold of £325,000. It can be arcane and complex to navigate. Expats who think they are not eligible for IHT could be in for a rude surprise, indeed with moves afoot to expand the definition of UK domicile in 2017, Inheritance Tax planning should be on everyone’s agenda.

As is often the case with these things the best tax planning solutions are often the simple ones. There is a raft of straightforward and accepted means by which IHT can be reduced and each will depend on individual circumstances.

The first consideration in planning for IHT is the ‘nil rate band’. If that person was married or had a civil partner the relevant provision allows claims for all or part of an unused nil rate band, up to £325,000 on the death of a spouse or a civil partner to be transferred to a surviving spouse.

From 2017, an additional nil-rate band of £100,000 will be available when a home is passed on death to a direct descendant. From 2018, the additional nil-rate band will increase by £25,000 per year, up to £175,000 in the year 2020. The main residence nil-rate band will be transferable where the second spouse or civil partner of a couple dies on or after 6 April 2017 irrespective of when the first of the couple died.

‘Gifting’ is another popular means of managing inheritance. If during your lifetime you give something to a friend or a family member, who is not your spouse or civil partner, and you no longer enjoy any benefit from it, the value of the gift will fall out of your estate. That is if you survive the gift by seven years. Sadly for Ronnie Corbett this was not the case.

Anything you leave to a UK or EEA charity is also free of Inheritance Tax. If you leave at least 10% of your estate to charity, it will reduce the rate at which Inheritance Tax is calculated to 36% rather than 40%. And life insurance policies are available to cover future IHT liabilities. This measure won’t reduce the amount of Inheritance Tax due, but the insurance proceeds will make it easier for the surviving family to pay the bill.

The reality is that IHT is complicated but important. The biggest obstacle to discussing IHT can be the embarrassment or perceived intrusion of raising inheritance with family members. But in reality, confronting the elephant in the room and planning now can be the difference between passing wealth to loved ones that will support them in the future and leaving a sizeable chunk of tax affairs to sort out.

This article was reproduced by kind permission of The Fry Group, providers of international tax advice.

This is just a quick update to alert mission workers to the fact that the ORT has now been published. The purpose of this is to help UK health authorities to work out whether they should be charging patients who live abroad for the cost of their hospital treatment. You can read the background to this important issue on our briefing paper on the subject of Accessing NHS Services.

You can access the ORT at the government website and you can see the questions you will be asked if you have been living abroad. How you answer them will determine whether the hospital thinks you are entitled to free treatment, so we suggest you plan your answers carefully.

The recent case of a friend on a visit to a country in west Africa whose bag was stolen (ironically, inside the Ministry of Justice!) prompts me to write about some simple steps we can all take to enhance our security as we travel. This particular case was a perfect storm of coincidences which made my friend unusually vulnerable, but taking some precautions will help minimise the risk of serious problems.

Embassy – make sure you know where the nearest embassy/consulate of your country is and have its phone number in your phone. If there isn’t one, make sure you know which country handles your country’s affairs and have their details.

Phone numbers – memorise or have a handwritten list of the numbers you can’t afford not to have with you, such as your office, the airline, your hotel , the embassy and your mum/husband.

Documentation – keep a photocopy of your passport (the information page and the visa page) and tickets in a safe place in case you lose the originals. Sometimes people will tell you to leave the originals in a safe but in many countries it’s illegal not to have the original documentation on you at all times. If your passport is stolen, report it to the embassy immediately and get a police report. The embassy can issue a replacement, and if there’s no embassy where you are, you can get a permit to travel to get you to the nearest one.

Insurance – take a copy of your insurance certificate with you so you can contact your insurer easily if you need to.

Power of Attorney – make sure somebody in your home country has a power of attorney registered with your bank so that they are authorised to cancel your credit cards and ask for replacements to be issued.

Marriage certificate – If you are a married woman, make sure all your documentation is in the same name, or carry a certified copy of your marriage certificate with you. A passport has a handy space for an ‘also known as’ name which is worth using.

Mobile – don’t take an expensive smartphone unless you need the screen. If you’re just planning to phone and text, take a simple phone which will be less attractive to thieves.

Medicines – if you have important medication, make sure you know where it is. Have a copy of a prescription so you can get some more if you need to.

Money – have small amounts of cash in different pockets and bags so that if you lose some, you don’t lose it all. Carry a dummy wallet with a few notes, an old credit card and some photos so that you can hand it over if necessary without losing everything. Keep the important things in a money belt.

Laptops – these are particularly vulnerable to theft. Have a password and some sort of encryption for secure documents. Keep a full backup on a memory stick in a separate place.

Luggage – it’s a good idea to pack things like money, medicines and data sticks in separate bags, so that if one bag is stolen, you haven’t lost everything. Keep things in pockets too in case all your luggage goes missing.

Credit cards – have a written note of the card numbers and the phone numbers you need to call to cancel them. Don’t even take them with you if you don’t have to. Carry a spare out-of-date credit card to serve as a decoy in a robbery.

Obviously, taking these precautions won’t prevent theft, accident or illness, but they should help you deal with it better!

The ISIS insurgency in Iraq has hit the headlines in the last few weeks as this Islamicist group has rapidly gained control of territory and prompted a mass-movement of refugees by its extreme persecution of minority religious groups, prompting many Christians to show their solidarity with the persecuted church by changing their Facebook photo to the Islamic letter ‘n’, which ISIS have been writing on the doors of the homes of Christians so that they can be easily identified. It stands for ‘Nasrani’, the Arabic word for Nazarene, the local term for Christian. Many people will not however have heard of the obscure Sykes-Picot Agreement which ISIS has vowed to overthrow.

ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) is the successor to a number of Al-Qaeda-linked organisations which emerged in the aftermath of the Western invasion of Iraq, and which gained ground as an insurgent group in the Syrian civil war. It has gained sympathy among Iraqi Sunnis marginalised by the pro-Shia regime of the recently-deposed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and it aims to impose a Sharia religious state (or Caliphate) throughout the Levant.

Sir Mark Sykes (left) and François George-Picot

Sir Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot were diplomats, British and French respectively, who in 1916 drew up a secret treaty agreeing how Britain and France would carve up the remains of the Ottoman Empire, which they confidently expected to be defeated in the First World War. When this happened, The League of Nations gave Britain and France a mandate to run the countries we now know as Syria and Lebanon (France) and Israel-Palestine, Jordan and Iraq (Britain) as part of their Empires while creating independent countries.

Sykes and Picot drew lines on a map with little consideration of ethnic, religious and tribal affiliations, rather as the European colonial powers had done in Africa a generation previously. The two countries subsequently imposed their own rule on these countries, overthrowing local arrangements which had emerged following the collapse of the Ottomans and reneging on previous agreements, particularly those made with local potentates by British soldier T E Lawrence in exchange for their support in fighting the Ottomans.

Ongoing persecution for the church in Iraq?

This meant that local groupings had no opportunity to work out their own spheres of influence in the region. In fact, since the arrival of Islam in the mid seventh century, the entire region has been in the hands of large empires (the Abbasid Caliphate, the Mongols, the Mamelukes and the Ottomans) which have artificially kept a lid on this turbulent region. Centuries-old tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims are now erupting in what experienced Middle East observers, including Lord Ashdown, have pointed out could be their equivalent of the Thirty Years’ War, as rival religious/tribal/ethnic groups vie to carve out their own polities.

The challenge for the Western world, which for the last century has continually tried to keep the lid on tensions in the region through a policy of appointing and supporting local strongmen like Bashar al-Assad and Saddam Hussein, is whether we step into this carnage and reimpose order (at what cost to ourselves and the locals?) or let the conflict that might have resolved issues a hundred years ago play itself out – at incredible cost of life and the ongoing persecution of minorities.

The dilemma is whether the Sykes-Picot Agreement should be overthrown, and if so, can we justify the consequences?

Many Christian agencies are working to help our brothers and sisters fleeing from the conflict in Iraq. Open Doors is one of them. Christian Today has some very practical suggestions on what individuals can do to help.

The news this week that Kent Brantly, a doctor working with Samaritan’s Purse in Liberia, and Nancy Writebol, an SIM mission worker, are both seriously ill with the Ebola virus has resonated round the Christian world as tens of thousands are moved to pray for their recovery. Both have received emergency care and Dr Brantly has now been evacuated to the United States for ongoing medical attention. Please pray for their recovery. They were both involved in treating others at a medical facility and Franklin Graham, President of Samaritan’s Purse, commented: “Their heroic and sacrificial service—along with the entire team there—is a shining example of Christ’s love in this crisis situation.”

An overview of the Ebola virus outbreak (www.samaritans purse.org)

Sadly it took the illness of two western development workers to draw the church’s attention to this outbreak which has already killed nearly 1000 Africans since it broke out in February in Guinea before spreading to Sierra Leone and Liberia. The virulent Ebola virus has been a persistent threat since it was first identified in 1976, yet despite the speed at which it kills its victims, good quality containment has prevented it becoming the global pandemic that is often feared, and the current outbreak is the worst on record.

Ebola spreads easily through exposure to bodily fluids, and since its principal symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting is is hard for those caring for patients to avoid infection without access to protective clothing, which can be difficult to obtain in the early stages of an outbreak. Ebola can take two to three weeks to develop, and in its early stages many victims may not be able to distinguish it from malaria, which means it can easily take hold of a community before it is identified.

As well as the tragedy of the deaths of its victims, Ebola can traumatise survivors. The need for isolation to contain the outbreak means that relatives cannot touch patients or say proper goodbyes. Bodies need to be disposed of rapidly and hygienically, which in parts of the region where the culture involves sitting grieving over a body for several days, can lead to a feeling that the victims have not been accorded due respect in their deaths, and may lead to fear of reprisals by the departed spirits.

There is no cure for the Ebola virus, but patients treated with rehydration therapy may fight it off for themselves. Ironically, for such a virulent virus, it is relatively easy to eliminate outside the body, with regular handwashing with soap and water being sufficient. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office has updates on the situation in all three affected countries and advises against all non-essential travel to some parts of Liberia. You can read further health advice on the outbreak here.

Regular readers of this blog will know we have spoken before of the excellent work of Tariroa technical college in Mozambique which provides high-quality vocational training. Click hereto read what we’ve said in the past as there’s no point in us repeating it!

Tariro are now in need of a new Commercial and Technical Director and have asked us to publicise this. While we do not normally provide this as a service as there are other excellent sites that specialise in this such as Oscar and Christian Vocations, we’re happy to make an exception in this case in view of our long-standing relationship with Tariro.

Anyone interested in taking up this opportunity can read more about it by accessing this pdf, or reading the formal job description.

Please pray that God will raise up the right person for this key missional role!

Six months ago we told you about the possibility of a vaccine against malaria, which is now awaiting regulatory approval. Last week news emerged of another breakthrough discovery which could help prevent people dying from one of the world’s most dangerous diseases.

According to a research article in the journal Science, a team of scientists based in the United States has identified a group of Tanzanian children who have naturally-occurring resistance to malaria. Normally hard for the human body to combat, malaria parasites enter into the human blood stream by way of a mosquito bite and then invade red blood cells where they multiply, before bursting out in great number, overwhelming the human immune system and heading for new cells. Their success consists of spending much of their time inside human cells, so the immune system cannot identify them except for brief moments.

Red blood cells infected by malaria

The children identified in Tanzania produced antibodies which stopped malaria parasites leaving infected red blood cells, thereby limiting their opportunity to continue reproducing before the infected cells are destroyed naturally in the spleen. The research was confirmed by checking against a survey of 138 Kenyan men and adolescent boys with the antibodies who were found to have a significantly lower number of parasites than those without.

One of the lead researchers explained that “Most vaccine candidates for malaria have worked by trying to prevent parasites from entering red blood cells. We’ve taken a different approach. We’ve found a way to block it from leaving the cell once it has entered. It can’t go anywhere. It can’t do any further damage.

We’re sort of trapping the parasite in the burning house.

Effective prevention

The research was tested on laboratory mice which were given a transfusion of blood containing the antibodies, and then infected with malaria. The result was to cut by nearly 75% the number of malaria parasites infecting the mice, and to double their survival rate. If these results are reproduced in the next stage of the trials – using monkeys – it is hoped that a vaccine will be ready for trials on humans within 18 months.

If successful, this research could go a long way towards reducing the 600,000 deaths from malaria each year. But, as we said in our previous blog which also covered preventive measures, the best way to avoid dying of malaria is to avoid being bitten by a mosquito!

The world woke up yesterday to the news that the three-day-old martial law in Thailand had suddenly given birth to a coup. Justifiably fearful that yet another democratically-elected government had been been overthrown by a right-wing oppressive regime, and oblivious to the irony that the west has recently enthusiastically endorsed the overthrow of a democratically-elected government in the Ukraine by a popular coup, the ‘pro-democracy’ west is blind to the implications of what this might mean for Thailand. Paradoxically, many Thai will be enthusiastic that the patriotic and impartial military will be taking steps to restore stability and governance to a political process which has been paralysed by intransigence and vested interests.

Former PM Thaksin Shinawatra

Our readers will be aware that the problem began some years ago when the populist leader Thaksin Shinawatra came to power in 2001 supported by rural masses lured by the promise of agrarian reform. The elections were possibly the most open and corruption-free elections in Thai history.

Yet allegations of corruption and abuse of power dogged his administration, which was overthrown five years later in a coup. Shortly after that, street violence between ‘red shirts’ (Shinawtra supporters) and ‘yellow shirts’ (an alliance of royalist upper and middle class Thai, and citizens of the southern provinces) erupted. While the violence has died down in recent years, the underlying tension has continued to simmer, and the adverse publicity has had a massive impact on the lucrative tourist industy.

Thaksin’s younger sister Yingluck became Prime Minister in 2011, though widely seen as a puppet for her brother. Protests against his influence continued and elections took place earlier this year which were boycotted by the yellow shirts who attempted to disrupt it. Yingluck won, but of course had no popular mandate, and the constitutional court (under the influence of the yellow shirts) first declared the election invalid and then dismissed the Prime Minister for abuse of her power.

Shinawatra performs traditional public obeisance before a portrait of the King

Meanwhile there is little comment on the influence of the severely ill King Bhumipol, the world’s longest-serving monarch. Highly revered, the King has such moral influence throughout his country that it is inconceivable the military would make a move without at least his tacit agreement. There is little doubt that he is considering the best interests not of a class or party, but his whole country.

This has all gone on largely over the heads of the Thai church, a small group numbering less than 0.5% of the population, which consists largely of the poor and marginalised ethnic minorities who often have nothing to lose by becoming Christians. In contrast, the dominant ethnic Thai people are uniformly buddhist and see that as part of their national identity, so it is hard for them to renounce their religion. Yet the crackdown could have an impact both on church meetings and the activities of the many mission workers in Thailand.

While the issues involved are incredibly complex and difficult to follow, the essence is that the Thai political system is broken. Instability, street violence and corruption have hampered Thailand’s economic development for years, and many lives have been adversely impacted in the process. Fifteen years ago Thailand was an Asian tiger which was an example of good governance to its less effective neighbours, but it has stagnated significantly since then.

Let us all pray that this time an enduring and open political process will emerge from the crisis, which will provide a stable environment for the emergent Thai church to thrive.

Housing for home assignment is frequently a huge headache for mission workers. In fact, it’s probably the single biggest challenge, though for many mission workers, their family and church may not even recognise this. So for starters, here’s a summary of the challenges:

If you’re single – You may end up moving in with your parents. While this is potentially demeaning for any adult, it may also put pressure on your relationships (particularly if your mum keeps asking when she’s going to need to go shopping for a hat). Or you may end up in a spare room at a friend’s house. This can be great fun when it works, but you may be acutely aware that it’s not your home and you need to work around somebody else’s space. At other times singles can end up in a succession of different places, often staying with strangers, which can be emotionally demanding no matter how hospitable they are.

If you’re a couple – People take couples’ needs more seriously than singles, recognising that you need your own space. You’re more likely to get a home of your own, but it’s still not always easy.

Sharing accommodation isn’t always easy

If you’re a family – The bigger your family, the bigger the challenge. It can be very hard to stay with friends due to the lack of space, but the rising cost of renting in the UK means you may not be able to afford somewhere large enough, and lack of space can put pressure on your family relationships. Families sometimes find themselves living far from friends, church and family, because they have to take what accommodation they can get. It doesn’t help the children form a positive impression of their parents’ home country.

Syzygy recommends that mission workers get a place of your own if this is at all possible. It gives you the private space you need to process all that’s gone on in your life on the field, and to deal with the pressures of adjusting to life in the UK (see Reverse Culture Shock). But renting is expensive, and it can be very hard to get a rental contract for less than a year, so there are a number of different solutions:

Multi-generational occupancy can be fun

Live in your own house – If you own a house, ask your tenants to move out so that you can live in it. It can help with a settling back into your ‘home’ but the challenge with this option is that your income drops though you still have to pay the mortgage. You also run the risk of not being able to let it again when you leave, although you can take the opportunity to do routine repairs which may help you get a better rent.

Save up money while you are overseas to set aside to pay rent when you return. Living back in your sending country may be significantly more expensive than being in the field, so setting aside a little every month (yes, I know it’s hard!) can help with this.

Ask your family/church/agency to help pay for the rent. Don’t be shy! They may not even have realised it’s a problem and could be happy to help. Churches in particular may need to be reminded of your needs.

Time-share a rental with other mission workers from the same church or town. You might be able to find other people sent from the same town as you who can synchronise their home assignment with yours, so that you can get a year’s rental agreement and take six months of it each.

Borrow a home from someone going overseas. Agencies can help arrange this, even if you’re not a member, as their short term mission workers will need to fill their homes while they’re abroad. Do some networking with other agencies in your field before you leave. Christian Home Exchange Fellowship may also be able to help.

Ask Syzygy. We know of one or two housing options that we can’t publicise, but contact us on info@syzygy.org.uk for more information.

Ask Oscar. The mission worker’s second favourite website (after this one!) has lists of the various options, including agencies and private lettings. Just click here.

Other long-term solutions can include forming partnerships with other mission workers to buy a property which can be used like a time-share, or if you know a number of mission workers from related churches in the same area, you may be able to encourage the churches to club together to buy a property for use as a mission home. One church I know bought a small development of flats and now rents most of them commercially, giving the church an income while they leave one flat permanently available for mission workers.

It’s also really important to gather a team around you, if you don’t have one already, who will prepare your accommodation. A group of friends, relatives and supporters who can source, rent and clean a home before you return, make sure it’s furnished and has food in the fridge, is a real blessing. Some churches collect and store everything from sofas to cutlery so that it can be used to kit out a rented house.

One thing that is important to stress is that having the right accommodation for your home assignment is a crucial element in managing the stress involved in returning to the UK, and it is well worth investing the time, energy and finance in finding the best solution.

One doesn’t have to an expert on church history to know that relationships between the Roman Catholic Church and the protestants have seldom been genuinely fraternal. Even though we don’t burn each other at the stake any more, we don’t always get along comfortably. This may be set to change as Pope Francis makes an impassioned personal appeal for Christian unity.

Syzygy’s friend Tony Palmer, a bishop in the Anglican Celtic tradition, has for many years lived in Italy mentoring charismatic Roman Catholic priests and has built up many influential links as the Holy Spirit brings renewal. Recently he had a private audience with Pope Francis, at the Pope’s request, during which they made a short video together.

In this video Tony first explains why the worldwide Lutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Church have agreed that the reformation is now over and that both churches agree that the theological basis for our salvation is grace alone. The Roman Catholic Church has officially agreed that Luther was right! Tony briefly explains the details of this before showing an emotional personal appeal for ecumenical unity from Pope Francis to his protestant brothers and sisters in Christ. This historic and inspiring video is a ‘must-see’! You can view it by clicking here. Syzygy recommends that you watch it all the way through to get the full effect.

This whole topic of course will raise questions in the minds of many evangelicals about the theological difference between protestants and Roman Catholics, particularly over some doctrines and practices which protestants have issues with. There may be doubts about whether there is a real desire for unity at grass-roots level, and questions about openness and integrity. This is likely to be a particularly painful issue for those Christians who have suffered in the Roman Catholic Church but have found a home in protestant churches. But it is important for us to recognise that this is not the end of a journey, but the beginning.

Tony Palmer comments: “What has changed is that Pope Francis wants to simplify the basis of unity. If you note Pope Francis mirrored Jesus’ theology when a lawyer asked Jesus what was necessary for eternal life:

And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbour as yourself.’ ” And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.” (Luke 10:25-28 NKJV)

The bottom line is that Pope Francis has reduced his basis for inclusion to those suggested by Jesus to the lawyer quoted above: ‘To love God, above all, and to love our neighbour, because he/she is our brother/sister’.

In my Italian and Celtic culture, we get to know each other while we share life together. Friendship precedes the deeper understanding of each other’s beliefs; I get to find out what people believe AFTER I have offered them unconditional love and friendship. This is what we need to do with each other. When we learn to trust each other, only then will we be able to hear each other without prejudice.”

It is clear that this is not going to be an easy journey for anyone, but before protestants start getting hot under the collar about issues in the Roman Catholic Church, we should remember that none of us are perfect, and we would do well to respond with the same generosity of spirit as Pope Francis, in lowering the bar and minimising the essential requirements for Christian unity.

And let’s pray for this radical Pope, that he will be able to complete the reforms he has started.

An interesting case came my way recently: a mission worker returning to the UK is unable to work due to ill health, and has been denied full Employment and Support Allowance due to not having maintained enough National Insurance Contributions (NICs) while serving abroad. This person commented to me:

Right now I’m feeling somewhat miffed that I wasn’t warned of this possible complication on my return should I need benefits.

The sadness of this case is that the mission worker had been paying NICs, but not the right class, and it would have been easy to make up the difference had this person realised. Which raises the point that churches, sending agencies and mission workers need to be aware that there are implications for failing to pay not only the correct amount of NICs, but also the right class, since there are four different types of NICs.

A quick recap: National Insurance Contributions were designed to be the method by which British citizens contribute towards the cost of a variety of forms of social security (e.g. state pension, the National Health Service, and financial support for the sick and unemployed). Failure to pay NICs can compromise or limit a citizen’s right to receive these services. Below is a table (copied from the HMRC website) indicating the different classes of NICs and what they entitle the contributor to:

Benefit

Class 1 – paid by employees

Class 2 – paid by self-employed people

Class 3 – paid by people who want to top up their contributions

Basic State Pension

Yes

Yes

Yes

Additional State Pension

Yes

No

No

Contribution-based Jobseeker’s Allowance

Yes

No (except for volunteer development workers employed abroad)

No

Contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance

Yes

Yes

No

Maternity Allowance

Yes

Yes

No

Bereavement benefits

Yes

Yes

Yes

(Class 4 National Insurance Contributions – paid by some self-employed people – don’t count towards any state benefits.)

NICs are notoriously complicated and we can give no more than an overview here, while encouraging everyone to make sure they are paying the right amount and the right classes. We strongly suggest that everyone who has worked abroad should check exactly what your current entitlement to state pension is and what you need to do to preserve your pension rights. To do this you should arrange a pensions forecast. You can only do this while in the UK and you can find out about a pensions forecast here. If there is a shortfall in the contributions you have made to date, you can top them up.

With any other queries about your NICs and entitlement to benefits you should contact HMRC who have a specific unit for people working overseas. Click here for further details.

If you are fortunate enough to be involved in humanitarian or development work, and your sending agency or church has registered with HMRC, you may be entitled to make Voluntary Development Worker contributions, which are levied at a lower rate. Click here for further details.

It will also be useful to have your residency statusresolved as this can also affect rights to benefits. Many mission workers are keen to be classed as non-resident, but this is one situation in which it may be helpful to be resident!

2013 has been an exciting year for Syzygy as we have built upon the hard work of recent years to expand our ministry in a number of different ways. Below is a brief synopsis of the ways in which Syzygy has been helping in mission. Just click on the orange hyperlinks to find out more about the issues involved.

Singles Ministry. The most high-profile change in direction for us this year has been the start of the Syzygy ministry to single mission workers. This aims to help singles focus on their calling, get their singleness in perspective and have a healthy single lifestyle. In September Tim led a retreat for single mission workers, and this will be repeated this year, and together with our associate Dr Debbie Hawker edited Single Mission, a book for single mission workers which was published in November. This has led to invitations to speak at conferences helping mission leaders be aware of issues they need to address so that their agencies are better places for singles to thrive. More events are planned. We also blog regularly about singlenessas an issue in mission.

Training and debriefing. We’ve continued to provide training to several mission partners preparing to go into cross-cultural mission, and for the first time we’ve developed a training module called Why do we Choose to be Stressed?which addresses underlying issues that can cause mission workers to suffer from stress and burnout. This has been well received and we hope to roll it out more.

Pastoral support – in June Tim went to Mozambiqueto visit mission workers and spent some significant time providing training and member care. We’ve continued to support several mission workers suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. We’ve helped over 20 mission workers in direct one-to-one debriefing and advising, including providing information on issues ranging from tax to accommodation.

Website – throughout the year traffic on our website continued to grow as we redesigned it to make it easier to read, and it’s now been seen by people in over 130 countries! We blogged regularly about a variety of issues of interest to mission workers, notably on stress, which continues to be an ongoing challenge to the entire missions sector. As well as a regular devotionalblog to help address the lack of spiritual input mission workers can suffer from, we also regularly provide informative updates and this year started a series of briefing papers about practical challenges about which we find mission workers are often seriously uninformed. We also do an occasional book review.

Car ministry – this year our car ministry grew significantly. We were given two cars, sold one and are just about to buy another to replace our ageing Galaxy. Donors gave generously to the costs of providing vehicles for mission workers on home assignment, and we started an ongoing sponsorship programme called Keep a Missionary Mobile to help meet the ongoing costs of the ministry. How about making a donation?

Collaborating with others – we have had the opportunity to work with a number of different agencies and forums over the year to provide training for them and additional support for their mission partners. We also helped to organise a conference for the European Evangelical Mission Association on Contextualisation in Mission, which was a fascinating event. We were also involved in coordinating a response to UK government legislation which will make it much harder for British mission workers who’ve married overseas nationals to move back to the UK with their partner.

Finally, we’d like to thank all our Trustees, volunteers, donors, contributors and prayer partners for helping Syzygy continue to help support mission workers worldwide, and of course we’d like to give glory to God for all that he has accomplished through this ministry.

It’s a while since we discussed TCKs, and since we reviewed reverse culture shock a few months ago, this might be a good opportunity to focus specifically on how this affects TCKs. TCKS are Third Culture Kids – people who spent a significant part of their formative years growing up in a culture which was not that of their parents. They don’t fully fit in either in their parents’ home country, or the country (or countries) in which they grew up, so they form their own third culture which features aspects of both. Where the parents are mission workers, they are also known as Mission Kids (MKs).

Among the many huge challenges facing TCKs is the question of where home is. They can often experience significant confusion over the issue, particularly when they’ve lived as mission kids in more than two countries. But they seldom agree with their parents that the original sending country is home. This complicates returning to the sending country, whether temporarily for home assignment or permanently, as in relocating for educational reasons.

Home… or away?

Parents can easily talk about this as ‘going home’, which it may well be for them, but for the children, it is more like going to a foreign country. They may be familiar with aspects of it but it is probably not home. They are leaving home! Their wider family in the sending country, and also in their ‘home’ church may reinforce this view, asking children who are already feeling lonely, bewildered and homesick how it feels to be ‘home’. It’s not surprising if they occasionally get a hostile response.

Recognising that any such transition is a huge challenge for young people is the first step in dealing with it. Some of our top tips for helping TCKs cope with this transition are:

ensure that the parents can spend more time than usual with their children, since they are a key point of stability in a different world;

connect with old friends back home through social media to maintain meaningful relationships;

bring with you favourite toys, furniture and food supplies so that you can continue to celebrate where you’ve come from;

meet with people from their host culture in the new country, and connect with other TCKs who have already made the transition;

continue to speak in the language of your host country to reinforce your connection with it;

take children and teens to Rekonnect – a summer camp specially designed for TCKs;

ensure that key features of life and culture in the new country are explained. Don’t take it for granted that TCKs know how to tie shoelaces or button a dufflecoat if they didn’t have shoes and coats as they grew up!

TCKs in Brazil – Pam and her four sisters

One of Syzygy’s trustees, Pam Serpell, herself a TCK who grew up in Brazil, wrote a dissertation on this subject for her degree, and has given us permission to publish it here. In her research she discovered that TCKs who reflected back on their experience of relocating to the UK used words like depressed, misunderstood, belittled, lonely, excluded, trapped and even suicidal. This will not come as a surprise to those who have already been through this transition, but indicates how seriously the challenges for TCKs need to be taken.

Pam also looked at what helped prepare the TCKs for the transition, supported them through it, and what else they thought might have helped. She clearly felt there is a need for sending agencies to do more to help prepare TCKs, perhaps through a formal orientation programme, and to support them through it. Fortunately, in the 10 years that have elapsed since she did her research, many agencies have made great progress in this area.

Yet despite the evident challenges involved in being a TCK, Pam concludes:

All the people who took part in my research expressed being grateful for their upbringing and the experiences they had in ‘growing up between worlds’ and I would encourage any TCK to concentrate on the benefits of their experience and look for the positives.

You can read a pdf of Pam’s dissertation here. As with all material on the Syzygy website, it is available for reuse where appropriate as long as the author receives due credit.

I have mentioned previously the benefit of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) as a tool for managing stress through self-understanding and this seems a good time to revisit it. Understanding what makes us tick can be critical for our relationships, both personal and professional, and finding the best way for us to live and work from a position of rest instead of stress.

MBTI is a simple and effective way of working out how you fit into the world, and it has four separate scales according to how you would answer these four questions:

Do you prefer engaging with the world outside you or the world inside?

Are you a details person or an ideas person?

Do you prioritise principles or people?

Do you like to be planned or spontaneous?

Harry Potter characters – which personality type are they?

The real MBTI analysis is much more complex than that, and is scarily accurate. It takes your measurements on each of these four scales and distils them into one of sixteen personality types. Frequently people read the synopsis for their personality type and comment that they could have written it themselves! It’s important to stress that there are no wrong or right answer to these, just preferences, and while some people might clearly be right at one end of one of the spectrums, others may be somewhere near the middle. It doesn’t matter because we’re all different, but knowing your own response to these questions may help you understand why you like to do things in a certain way, and why other people may misunderstand you.

For example, I like to be planned, which means I value order and structure. I like everything in its place and an agreed process for doing things. When I’m stressed, I can become insistent on putting rules in place because it helps me establish some order and create an environment I can feel comfortable with. But someone who isn’t like me could see my attempt to create order as needless bureaucracy, and I have been accused (unjustly in my opinion!) of being controlling, because I don’t value the flexibility that is important to them.

ISTJ stress head (Copyright CPP)

Recently there have been several different ways of expressing MBTI types in a commonly accessible way. These have included characters from Star Wars or Harry Potter, which are creative and amusing, but one of the most effective ones is a simple icon developed by CPP. This consists of a head for each personality type, together with key words associated with it. There is also a corresponding ‘stress’ head which has the key words which are associated with stress for that personality type. If you know your MBTI, you’ll find them interesting, and if you don’t, you may be able to work it out from these, though it needs to be said that these are no substitute for doing a proper analysis with a professional trainer. You can find the complete set at the CPP website.

In my opinion, doing an MBTI test should be an essential part of preparing for cross-cultural mission, as it helps equip us to be more self-aware and to get along better with our fellow team members. That in turn reduces stress and helps us to minimise attrition.

All material on this website (except where otherwise credited) is copyright Syzygy Missions Support Network 2009-2015.
It is freely available for reproduction for charitable purposes where Syzygy is credited. For commercial use please ask permission from info@syzygy.org.uk